October 05, 2011
Wednesday

In response to Ms. Gates' letter, here's how I see it.

1. If you want a booth so tour guides don't have to stand in the rain build one at your expense or the cruise ship company's expense. I don't want my tax dollars going towards paying for the shelter accommodations for the Ship Shore Excursion Staff. Let them handle it.

2. On your second point I agree. This Ketchikan City and Borough have so many regulations it's almost impossible to figure them all out. Heck they (city and borough don't even know what's going on. A few years ago I was going to open a concession stand to operate at the ball field, ferry terminal and down by the Lumber Jack show. But a $500 permit was required for each location and you can't park on the street. At the time the only place on the dock that was open was owned by the cruise ships. It was going to cost a little over $2,000 just to get the permits to have the privilege to open the stand. So yes the City and Borough need to get their act together and make it more feasible for local businesses to be able to operate in their own city.

3. Until we provide security for our children at school crossings during their walk to school and leaving school, I do not have any sympathy in regards to port security. We will provide crossing guards for adults but can't even get the police to park a car by the crosswalks to slow vehicles down. We don't have such a high crime rate where a patrol car can't help at the schools for a half hour in the morning and afternoon. Carlana and Baranof intersections are accidents waiting to happen. There are 5 year old small children crossing the intersections while traffic is speeding up the hill. I tried to get the city to put up crosswalk lights there but they said it would cost $50,000 per light. I did some research and brought Alaska test crossing lights that cost $3,000 each. But still no crossing lights for Ketchikan children. So again until the city puts a lot more effort in protecting the children of Ketchikan, I could care less about anymore protection for the cruise ship passengers.

Art Bailly
Ketchikan, AK